Weekly Review: Josephine Bouchon

Arriving full of cynicism but discovering something quite near perfection.

Quick hit: Faultless Lyonnaise food and experience.

Details: Booking essential. Chelsea. £££.
Restaurant website. More on Instagram and Michelin Guide.
Find it on Google Maps. 315A Fulham Rd., SW10 9QH.

Spend some time reading about restaurants, and you’ll discover an infinite range of opinions (and articles) about what defines perfection.

For some, it’s technical perfection. Places from Thomas Keller, Fernan Adria, and Wylie Dufresne have come about as close as anyone to technical food nirvana.

For others, it’s authenticity. A place that expresses its view or its heritage with perfect delivery of cuisine and experience.

But it’s impossible to get away from the reality that opinions about restaurants are necessarily subjective.

Perfection is truly in the eye of the beholder.

If that’s not a very controversial thought, let me go further: That means there is more than one perfect restaurant in the world, at least for me.

I should probably articulate my own definition of restaurant perfection. But I have to alter the framing slightly, because in reality no restaurant is actually perfect in very respect all of the time. After all, humans are involved.

So we’re really talking about a perfect meal. Technical excellence in the food is, of course, required with no flaws whatsoever in the preparations. Dishes that I will remember years in the future. I like food with a sense of humour, but that isn’t required. A recall of a treasured or distant memory will do. Plus the experience. Comfortable. A place (and a chair) where I don’t mind sitting for a few hours. And fun. I’d like to laugh. Service that joins the conversation and shapes itself to the mood at my table. And a feeling. A place that I would like to go back to, if I ever have the opportunity.

Thus far in my journey, I’ve experienced what I would call perfection in a handful of places. The French Laundry, for example. It’s been years, but I could still recount much of our meal, and I would go back every week if I could. Or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, Peg Leg Pete’s, a dive bar in Pensacola Beach, Florida, which served perfect fried oysters, homemade tartar sauce, and grandma’s key lime pie.

And after a few days reflection, I’m ready to add Josephine Bouchon to that list. Maybe it wasn’t textbook perfect, but it was damn close.

First, I should admit that I turned up ready to be cynical. Virtually every major reviewer has raved about the place, each in their own way. How could this be possible? Surely there are flaws.

Not really, actually.

Josephine is modelled on a Lynonnaise bouchon — the kind of places that historically served solid, regional food at affordable prices to the city’s workers. In more recent years, as those now-classic dishes faded from the day-to-day scene in favour of fried chicken and pizza, Lyon’s bouchon have evolved. The food has become more refined. But the atmosphere in most of these places has retained that throw-back, family-run feeling.

During our visit to Lyon a couple of years ago, we went to do a different bouchon every night, sampling everything from saddle of rabbit to oxtail that had been cooked all day. The food was earthy, deep, and homely.

Josephine could be in Lyon. It’s that well done. The tables are millimetres from being too close together. The French art-house movie posters on the walls bring warming pops of colour to any sightline.

The staff we met were a mixture of French and Italian, and every one of them was ready with a quip or to jump into a conversation, often hilariously so. The head sommelier knew his list, but delighted in discussing it, and helped us find a bottle that was among my top 5 all time best. Service was familiar without being inappropriate. Their engaging attitude made the food better.

I probably don’t need to tell you that the food was extraordinary. It was. And made more so by the absurd attention to detail. For example, toast. For my starter, I went for beef tartare. A classic. And it was wonderful. Perfectly seasoned with salt and lemon juice, wonderfully flavoured with Worcestershire sauce and chilli sauce. The bites of beef cut to just the right size. It was a 9.9 out of 10. But the accompanying toast was sheer perfection. To ensure even cooking, it was fried. That delivered a wonderful crispness on the outside with a delightful softness on the insight. After frying, it was rubbed with a little garlic and butter.

Incredible beef tartare, with toast prepared to perfection.

Out other starter was cheese soufflé, the kind of culinary miracle that only French kitchens can do well. And it was served with a cheese sauce made, as far as I can tell, with tiny proportions of dozens of complimentary cheeses, blended at just the right moments into a carefully made béchamel. It was a call back to the cheese soufflé my mother used to make when I was young — though at a considerably higher level of technical proficiency. (Sorry, mom.)

Cheese soufflé. Better than mom’s. (Sorry, mom.)

Between courses, I wondered what makes a kitchen care so much about its food that it goes the extra mile to get its toast perfect.

My main was veal sweetbread with a morel mushroom sauce. Perfectly cooked, and a sauce so deep and powerful that I wonder how many tons of veal bones needed to make the stock. (Please no one tell the team at Trivet this, but I liked this sweetbread even better than Jonny’s incredible version.) My wife went for chicken vol au vent, and the chefs’ efforts to rescue this concept from 1970s dinner party horror stories were entirely rewarded. It was a culinary in-joke that entirely landed.

Vol au vent. Food comedy at its most delicious.

Dessert was chocolate mousse for two. And here, attention to detail won again. The mousse itself was sweet, creamy, and the perfect consistency. It was topped with shaved dark chocolate, which added a bitter element and provided balance.

Chocolate mousse, topped with shaved dark chocolate.

Josephine Bouchon is, of course, the project of Claude Bossi, who is also behind Brooklands, which I raved about earlier in the year. The man behind the stoves — and whose attention to detail pushes the restaurant towards perfection, is Matteo de Degola, an Italian who seems to have found a home with Lyonnaise preparations.

Josephine Bouchon has been so successful that there are already plans for a second location, this time in Marylebone. But chatting to one of the managers, I caught an interesting piece of news: The new location will not try to replicate the Lyonnaise food or vibe. Instead, it will try to capture something of Hemingway’s Paris. If the original is anything to go on, I am confident it will succeed. It’s due to open later this year.

For now, get yourself to Josephine Bouchon as soon as you can. It’s definitely for professional lunch, but you’ll want to go on a Friday, and cancel whatever is in the diary for the afternoon. You won’t regret it. And you might just get to explore the nearly perfect restaurant experience.

Thanks for reading this week’s review. I’d love to hear what you thought of Josephine Bouchon in the comments. And also, where else have you experienced the perfect restaurant?